That was the only response I could think to offer my friend, a kind and funny and talented person who sings with me in my community choir. I asked because he’s Jewish. Because just a week before, the most violent act of anti-Semitism in United States history happened: 11 people killed at a massacre in a Pittsburgh synagogue, all of them shot, and why? Because they were Jewish.

“Are you ... are you OK? Can I do anything?”

I could have just as easily asked the same question of my African-American friends too, in light of the murder of two people of color at a Jeffersontown, Ky., grocery store late last month. The killer in that tragedy first went to a predominantly black church to presumably murder folks in that house of worship, but finding it locked, he drove to a nearby Kroger’s and opened fire. Two folks cut down while shopping and why? Because they were African-American.

“Are you...are you OK? Can I do anything?”

I might ask those questions of my women friends after the killing of two female yoga students at a studio in Tallahassee, Fla., last week. The man who wielded the gun in that crime had a long history of hating women, of posting misogynistic videos on YouTube, who as a college student was arrested twice on charges of violence against women. Two people murdered and why? Because they were women.

What can I do? What can we do to fight such sick and evil hatred? To name and confront the sins of racism, of religious intolerance, of deadly sexism? To stand with and for all in our world who are threatened with injury or death or hatred because of the God they worship, the color of their skin or their gender?

As Americans, as humans, as people of faith, we have to ask these questions. Have to move beyond the lazy and specious responses too many offer when such hate crimes happen. The killer was just crazy, mentally ill, yeah ... that’s why he did it. It was random, an anomaly. Such acts of terrorism are so rare they are a fluke somehow. That’s not really who America is, who we are, right? It’s easy for me to offer such platitudes, me. Who never has to fear going out in public because of my race or religion or gender. Me: who’s never been stared at in suspicion or fear or sick lust because of who I am.

Can we do anything? Will we do anything?

Or will we just let these tragedies quickly fade away in the insane news cycle that is America in 2018? Just wait a couple of days. Something worse will happen. We live in times when it feels as if we are so overwhelmed by so many stories about so many vicious acts of human hatred that we become numb to it all.

That’s no excuse for apathy. We must do something: as individuals, a nation and as children of God. Because here's the hard truth: until neighbors truly love all their neighbors; until we refuse to tolerate as “the norm” the -isms that separate us one from another; until we call out “leaders” who by their indifference and bullying ways fan the flames of bias, we are all a part of the problem. All of us. By choosing to do nothing we allow the status quo of hate to continue.

Will we do anything? Or will we not?

As concentration camp survivor and German Pastor Martin Niemoller warned the world in 1933, “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

The Rev. John F. Hudson is senior pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn (pilgrimsherborn.org). If you have a word or idea you’d like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org or in care of the Dover-Sherborn Press (Dover-Sherborn@wickedlocal.com).